Website Conversion Audit
A conversion audit identifies where visitors drop off before completing valuable actions. It examines the path from landing page to conversion, identifying friction points, confusing navigation, and missed opportunities.
The goal is not more traffic. The goal is more value from existing traffic. A 10% improvement in conversion rate is often worth more than a 30% increase in visitors.
What a conversion audit examines
User paths
How visitors actually move from entry to conversion, where they hesitate, and where they abandon.
Common issues
- Unclear paths to conversion
- Too many steps to complete actions
- Confusing navigation patterns
- Drop-offs at unexpected points
Form completion
How forms are structured, what fields cause abandonment, and whether validation helps or hinders.
Common issues
- Too many required fields
- Confusing error messages
- Mobile form usability issues
- No progress indicators
Calls-to-action
Whether CTAs are visible, compelling, and aligned with user intent at each stage.
Common issues
- Weak or unclear button copy
- CTAs below the fold
- Competing calls-to-action
- Inconsistent styling
Analytics accuracy
Whether your tracking captures actual user behaviour and conversions are attributed correctly.
Common issues
- Broken or missing tracking
- Incorrect goal configuration
- Cross-domain tracking failures
- Bot traffic inflating metrics
Page effectiveness
How landing pages perform against expectations and whether content matches visitor intent.
Common issues
- High bounce rates on key pages
- Content-intent mismatch
- Slow loading affecting engagement
- Poor mobile experiences
Conversion bottlenecks
The specific points in your funnel where the highest value is lost.
Common issues
- Pricing page abandonment
- Cart abandonment patterns
- Registration friction
- Final step drop-offs
What a conversion audit service should establish
A conversion rate optimisation audit should create a decision base, not a long list of preferences. We examine how people reach the site, what they see, how they move between steps and whether the measurement is trustworthy. The purpose is to separate observable friction from assumptions and identify where intervention is commercially justified.
Evidence reviewed
Behaviour and measurement
Event definitions, funnel data, device and market differences, form or checkout completion, attribution boundaries and the gaps that prevent a reliable reading.
Customer journeys
The routes taken by new and returning visitors, the information required before action, points of hesitation and the steps where commercially valuable users leave.
Page and proposition
Whether landing pages answer the promise that brought the visitor, make the next step clear and provide enough evidence for the decision being asked of them.
Commercial context
Lead quality, order value, margin, qualification rules and sales handoff. A higher conversion rate is not useful when it produces more of the wrong outcome.
What you receive
Evidence register
A clear record of what the available data supports, where it conflicts and which conclusions remain assumptions because the necessary evidence does not exist.
Prioritised friction map
The points where value is most likely being lost, separated from cosmetic observations and ranked by commercial consequence, confidence and dependency.
Action sequence
A practical order for changes and tests, including what must be corrected first, what can run in parallel and what should not be changed yet.
Measurement conditions
The events, segments and comparison periods needed to judge whether a change improved customer behaviour and commercial performance rather than a dashboard metric alone.
What the audit cannot prove on its own
A website conversion audit cannot establish that more conversions will create profitable growth, that a redesign will solve a weak proposition or that every point of friction should be removed. Some friction qualifies customers. Some apparent conversion problems begin with traffic quality, pricing, product fit or the sales process. The audit identifies what the website evidence supports and where the problem crosses into the wider commercial system. It does not guarantee an uplift or turn incomplete evidence into certainty.
Common conversion problems
Form field overload
Asking for information you do not need. Every additional field reduces completion rates.
Impact: Completion rates drop 10-15% per unnecessary field.
Mobile friction
Forms and checkouts designed for desktop that become unusable on mobile.
Impact: Mobile users abandon at 2-3x the rate of desktop.
Trust signal absence
No security badges, testimonials, or guarantees where users need reassurance.
Impact: Hesitation at final steps leads to abandonment.
Analytics blind spots
Tracking that does not capture the full conversion path, leading to wrong optimisation decisions.
Impact: Optimising for the wrong metrics wastes budget.
Part of the wider Marketing MRI
A conversion audit tells you where users drop off. It does not tell you whether you are attracting the right users, or whether what you are converting them to is commercially valuable.
- Conversion problems often have upstream causes: wrong traffic sources, misaligned messaging, or unclear value propositions that no amount of CRO will fix.
- Optimising conversion without fixing the lead quality problem means converting more of the wrong people.
- Some friction is intentional: qualification forms should filter, not just convert.
The Marketing MRI examines conversion alongside five other domains: channels and reporting, attribution, sales handoff, user experience, and team capability. Conversion rate is one metric in a larger system.
Learn about Marketing MRIConversion is commercial
If visitors are not converting, that is worth understanding. But if you suspect the problem is systemic, not just CRO, you need a broader examination.